Welcome to today’s edition of sustain, I’m your host Steve Williams. Today we have some really interesting sounds and a conversation with Zuzana Hamm performing as FridaY. Zuzana is the founder of the new project bitumen lichen. We talk about boundaries and connections – between the organic and artificial, between pasts and futures, between natural and industrial. Zuzana explores all of these boundaries and disrupts and connects across the boundaries through her music and the bitumen lichen project. We hear some amazing sounds from their first live event including the premiere of a soundtrack to Flora’, the latest book by Jonáš Zbořil that narrates a story of a creature born from nature and industrial waste in the wilderness of the toxic outskirts of a city as well as an excerpt of a performance by Nina Pixel that was also part of the live event. I really enjoyed our conversation and the sounds so let’s get into it.

Bio

Zuzana Hamm aka FridaY is a musician, DJ, music journalist and copywriter, event organiser and a shipping and community manager at KOMA Elektronik. In 2021, she completed a music production mentorship programme with Sebastian Mullaert (Minilogue) and the Amplify Berlin residency under the mentorship of Hainbach. In 2025, she finished the School of Song songwriting course with Brian Eno. In her productions and shows, she combines the use of synthesizers, controllers and Ableton with vocals, harp, bass, field recordings and improvisation. bitumen lichen is an outlet for electrorganic music, sound, photography and other fruiting bodies of work, founded by FridaY. The platform explores intersections, commonalities and liminal spaces between what we understand as the natural & organic and the artificial, industrial and urban. Sonically, bitumen lichen’s spectrum ranges from ambient, drone, field recordings and experimental electroacoustic music to low end frequencies, polyrhythms, percussion and breaks.

Links:

Bitumen Lichen https://www.instagram.com/bitumen.lichen/

Friday https://www.instagram.com/friday_musik/

KOMA Elektronik Chromoplane https://koma-elektronik.com/new/product/chromaplane/

Nina Pixel https://www.instagram.com/ninnpix/

Flora by Jonáš Zbořil https://www.paseka.cz/produkt/flora/

Community Chai Berlin https://www.instagram.com/community_chai